Allina News

It’s become increasingly common for patients to be referred to an acupuncturist.

[The Patch, Jan. 31, 2012] Have you ever had an ailment that just wouldn’t go away, despite your doctor’s best care?

At Allina Medical Clinic – Northfield—as elsewhere—it’s become increasingly common for such patients to be referred to an acupuncturist, which is often their first venture into the widening world of alternative/complementary medicine. Read the full story at patch.com.

This image of a Pipeline catheter in place in a patient shows the catheter at the bottom, Pipeline (light-colored tube to the right of dark area) and dark contrast pooling of blood within the treated aneurysm.

[Star Tribune, Jan. 30, 2012] As physicians, nurses and technicians looked on, Dr. Benjamin Crandall and Dr. Josser Delgado gingerly inserted a catheter into an artery in the leg of a 55-year-old woman.

To guide them, the neuroradiologists watched their progress on several screens showing multiple images of the blood vessels in her brain. It was her brain — or, more accurately, a large 1-inch cerebral aneurysm — that was their destination.

Delgado’s team at Abbott Northwestern is the only group in the Twin Cities area, and one of only two in Minnesota, implanting the Pipeline device. Read the full story at startribune.com.

[KSTP-TV, Jan. 26, 2012] We all know beating cancer can be a long and difficult challenge, and now one Minnesota hospital has a new way to recognize the fight.

Cambridge Medical Center in Isanti County unveiled its bell of hope. It’s rung in celebration after a person completes chemotherapy treatment. The bell was paid for by donations. Watch below.

Star Tribune photo showing Jack Jablonski arriving at Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital

[WCCO-AM, Jan. 24, 2012] Tuesday is Jack Jablonski’s first full day at his new rehabilitation center.

The 16-year-old Benilde-St. Margaret’s sophomore left the Hennepin County Medical Center Monday to begin rehab at Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

Doctors couldn’t give us any specific details on what challenges Jablonski would be facing directly, but they did say what it’s like for at spinal cord injury patient at their hospital. Read and listen to the story at minnesota.cbslocal.com.

Listen here.

Robert Hauser, M.D.

[Heartwire.com, January 20, 2012] A meeting of the minds in Minneapolis today aims, in part, to figure out what to do with the thousands of people in the US—about 79 000, according to St Jude Medical—who remain fitted with the company’s “recalled” St Jude Medical Riata or Riata ST implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) leads.

There remains a lot of uncertainty about how to manage patients who have been implanted with Riata leads, whether or not they have shown signs of electrical abnormalities, according to Dr Robert G Hauser (Abbott Northwestern Hospital and Minneapolis Heart Institute, Minneapolis, MN), who along with Dr David L Hayes (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN) is directing today’s meeting. Read the story at theheart.org.

An artist’s rendering of the emergency department, at right, planned for Allina’s WestHealth facility in Plymouth.

[Star Tribune, Jan. 13, 2012] Allina Hospitals & Clinics said it is adding an emergency department to its WestHealth facility in Plymouth — a project expected to cost between $5 million and $8 million.

The new department will be staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with emergency room doctors affiliated with Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. The 18,000-square-foot addition will be attached to the current campus, at Interstate 494 and Hwy. 55.

Read more at startribune.com. Also at finance-commerce.com (subscription required) and bizjournals.com.

[Wall Street Journal, Jan. 12, 2012] Long-distance runners can breathe a little easier.

Scattered reports of heart-related deaths during marathons and half marathons over the past few years have prompted questions about the safety of the events. But a study of participants over more than a decade found only a tiny risk of cardiac arrest during or immediately after a race, a 1 in 184,000 chance.

“The study helps us understand what the risk is with cardiac arrest in the marathon, and we find it’s not very high at all,” said Kevin Harris, a cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute who wasn’t involved in the research. Read more at wsj.com.

The Jan. 20 summit seeks to develop a consensus regarding the management of patients who have Riata and Riata ST ICD leads.

[Business Wire, Jan. 7, 2012] Cardiovascular leaders will gather in Minneapolis for a one-day summit on Jan. 20, to review data for Riata and Riata ST implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) leads, which recently underwent a Class I FDA recall.

The summit directors are Robert G. Hauser, MD, senior cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute® at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and David L. Hayes, MD, professor of medicine. Read more at businesswire.com.

Michael Robert Calistro-Gomulak, shown with his mother, Gina Calistro of Minong, was born at Allina's Mercy Hospital in September.

[Duluth News Tribune, Jan. 5, 2012] Here’s one way to think about Michael Robert Calistro-Gomulak’s birth weight: At 15 pounds, 7 ounces, he weighed more at birth than both of his parents put together when they were born. His is the fourth-largest documented birth in Minnesota history.

Michael, who was born Sept. 28 at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minn., is the first child for Gina Calistro and the second for his dad, Scott Gomulak. She chose to have the baby delivered at Allina’s Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, where she grew up and knew the doctors. Read more at duluthnewstribune.com.

[KMSP Fox 9, Jan, 3, 2012] Millions of Americans who use ADHD medications to help control their lives are concerned over a drug shortage now that pharmacies are running out.

Pharmacists thought the shortage would be over last summer. Instead, they say it’s just getting worse, and it’s affecting everyone.

Ann Byre, the director of Allina Community Pharmacies, says they’ll be completely out of Adderal, Ritalin and the generic brands on any given day.

The Humenny twins and their mom Stephanie Peterson.

[Star Tribune, Jan. 3, 2012] Twins Beckett and Freya Humenny will grow up together, but they will never share a birthday — or even a birth year. Beckett was born at 6:40 p.m. on New Year’s Eve 2011. His sister, Freya, was born six hours later, at 12:26 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2012.

Allina Medical Clinic – Parkview OB/GYN Kaye Mickelson, MD, says doctors are no longer in a big rush to deliver twins close together.

“It’s an old obstetrician way of looking at twins that you have to get that second one out within 30 minutes.” Read more at startribune.com.

[KMSP Fox 9, Jan. 2, 2011] A Twin Cities high school hockey player suffered a neck injury in a game that has severely damaged his spinal cord and left him partially paralyzed. Fox 9 News talked with Dr. Murali Krishnamurthy at Allina’s Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute about how such an injury happens and what modern rehabilitation techniques can do.